CeraVe - any opinions?

[YeahComeOnThen]

A friend has asked me if I know if the pm facial cream & the anti ageing Eye cream with caffeine are any good?

one look at me would tell you either I haven't tried them or they're crap 🤣

but I thought I'd see if I could get any other opinions.

my AIBU is

inexpensive face & eye creams don't work. The damage is done

YABU - they are good

YANBU - they're all a pile of crap.

In my experience moisturisers are all pretty good and you should ideally moisturise daily. However if you want to see a difference you need active ingredients. Those can cost thousands or a few pounds once you know what you want or need. Sunscreen is necessary to prevent aging and sun spots. Retinol works to slow aging. Salicylic acid prevents built up and spots, glycolic acid is great for softening skin. I could go on but the point is the ingredients not the brand.

The Ordinary is a good place to start. I have a few firm favourite products but I've landed upon them through quite a bit of research.

What specifically do you want to achieve?

CeraVe's moisturisers don't agree with my skin, but their hydrating oil cleanser is my holy grail. That said, moisturisers don't have to be expensive to be good - as @Poachedeggavocado said, you're better off having a basic moisturiser and a serum with active ingredients to target your specific concerns. I like the Geek & Gorgeous happy barrier cream as my am/pm moisturiser and that's only a tenner.

Skin care ingredients do not have to cost a fortune to work. What works and doesn't is well known, anything £££ is just selling you a feeling of luxury.

Cerave is a good quality moisturiser with good ingredients - ceramides and niacinamide. That said, some people are sensitive to niacinamide.

It won't give you a miracle but it's a good product, better than a lot at much higher price points.

I think CeraVe is a pretty good mid range brand. I use a moisturiser from them but not the ones you mention specifically. It works well for me.

With the more expensive face and eye creams, my view is that it is worth paying a bit more than the very cheap stuff you can get in the supermarket (Simple, Nivea, etc), but there comes a point where it is not worth it.

I'd never pay a lot of money for a product that claims to have 'anti ageing' properties. I think in the low concentrations that they are allowed to sell to the public, most ingredients don't really do a lot.

If you have concerns about your skin then you should just go to a dermatologist or use one of the online services (like Dermatica/ Skin + Me etc) because they are actual prescription products that work.

Other than that, just use an SPF and a decent moisturiser, eat well/ exercise, and accept that your skin will naturally change and age as you do!

I buy a range of facial products, priced from £2.99 but never over £10..

For me it's consistency of use rather than the cost of the product itself.

Warm water flannel wash morning and evening and at the moment it's Nivea eye and face cream with Vitamin C.
Nothing fancy.

Cerave is excellent but it's really increased in price recently, used to be about a tenner!

I was so optimistic buying Ceve but it’s a pile of crap, it’s no better than the £1.99 rubbish in home bargains. Maybe it’s just my skin but it never feels clean after the Ceve cleanser and feels super greasy after the moisturiser.

I don’t know about anti aging (maybe there’s two eye creams?) but cerave eye cream is the most relaxing, hydrating, fab eye cream out there. Adore it (but although I’m 43 I’m not really into anti aging, just love it as it’s comfortable and in the morning a good primer for concealer

By the way I heard someone say the reason some of the cheap moisturisers are cheap is because they don’t spend a lot on advertising. Not sure how true that is

They sell you a lifestyle. £2.99 and in a boring tub means it's not great, £150 and in a fancy pot it must be fantastic.
The ingredients might be the same.

I use the blemish control Cerave stuff, cleanser, serum, moisturiser etc., my skin has really cleared up since. I also use a L'Oreal day/night moisturiser every day otherwise the Cerave can dry out my skin

I didn’t get on with CeraVe at all.

I like the hydrating cleanser but the retinol resurfacing serum did not agree with my rosacea. It looked like a chemical burn. I like Paula's choice for everything else.

Really not a fan of Cerave and think it’s very over hyped. In my opinion it’s low quality, overpriced rubbish sold as the skincare holy grail - both for me and teen DD (obviously very different skin concerns) all it has done is make our skin dry, dull and irritated. Not usually sensitive at all to skincare products!

Sorry, I know this is a serious thread and hope you're getting some answers but I can't think of CeraVe now without this 'advert' coming to mind!

I switched to Cerave about a year ago and I can tell the difference.

Cheapo rubbish that they have now inflated the price of.

Use CeraVe face wash on recommendation of my dermatologist. I have rosacea and very sensitive skin. Initially when I went to her I was told to stop using absolutely everything beside this and some rosetral (which was expensive). It has helped enormously. I haven’t had a real flair up since I started with it.

CeraVe is a dermatologist formulated range. It's not fancy, you're not paying for a nice box and a heavily photoshopped supermodel advertising it. You won't find many dermatologists who don't use it.

The products are designed to do what skincare needs to do: cleanse and hydrate generally, then different products contain actives to do different things. The salicylic products for oily blemish prone etc.

I only use the oil cleanser. I tried the hydrating foaming cleanser but I found it quite drying.

It might not suit everyone, but there's no doubt that it's extremely expertly formulated for specific needs and quality-price point is very good.

I'm not sure if any of the products are anti-ageing (ie contain vitamin A) so can't comment on the actual Aibu.

I forgot to say I use the facial moisturiser. I don't use the cleanser, instead I use Superdrug vitamin E hot cloth cleanser. Once I use up my Nivea I am going to try their night cream.

La Mer gives me cystic acne. Elemis makes my rosecea come back. Cerave moisturises gently. Love the stuff.

The last time I checked the CeraVe facial cream was exactly the same as the body cream, only more expensive. When my skin was really dry during peri-menopause I used that and it was great.
The fancier creams are different to the cheaper ones in terms of the oils and chemicals in them. Shea butter and Marula oil and centella asiatica do make a difference. They go on more smoothly and have a different smell and texture.
I believe eye creams are a hoax - just use moisturiser: but there are differences in creams.

The Superdrug vitamin E cleanser is another one highly recommended by derms.

I saw an interview recently with a cosmetic formulating chemist and the interviewer asked her what she would use among all the Creme de la Mers and Guerlain Orchid thingy and she said CeraVe and Superdrug Vitamin E for cleansing. (she also didn't go up to Tret for her retinoid but said she was happy to stick at retinal)

There you go then. I got onto the Vitamin E from a mumsnet recomendation because I liked Liz Earle but found it too highly perfumed.

Me too! I do still love the Liz Earle (I think it was one of my first "Mumsnet made me buy it" products, but the Vitamin E is just as good. Oddly I didn't get on with the Superdrug radiant one, the one that's supposed to be a dupe for Liz Earle at all.